Friday, September 24, 2010

Reliance Consumer Fin aims Rs 40K cr loan disbursals

Betting big on infrastructure sector, Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Consumer Finance plans to bolster its business to increase loan disbursals by over four times to Rs 40,000 crore in next 3-4 years.

Reliance Consumer Finance, which is a part of Reliance Capital Group, is looking to tap vast financing opportunities available in the fast growing infrastructure sector in the country.

"We are planning to ramp up our loan order book about four times from the current Rs 9,500 crore to Rs 40,000 crore in the next three-four years," Reliance Consumer Finance CEO K V Srinivasan told PTI.

"Our key focus area for driving the growth will be infrastructure sector, as there is huge opportunity available in the sector to cater to financing requirements of primarily medium-sized companies and large firms as well," Srinivasan added.

Other key segments to which Reliance Consumer Finance offers its services are small & medium enterprises financing, Commercial vehicles and equipment financing and mortgages.

Reliance Consumer Finance had a customer base of over 1,17,000 customers, as on June 30, 2010, across the top 16 Indian metros.

Last month, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said there may be 30 per cent gap in infrastructure funding requirement, targetted at Rs 41 lakh crore, in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017).

He said the fundamental constraint in financing infrastructure relates to the limits on banks' lending to the sector due to asset-liability mismatch.

In the 11th Five year Plan ending March 2012, the government had announced infrastructure investment target of over Rs 20 lakh crore.